


Archaic Kinds of Fun

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Deductions, F/M, Gen, Mystery, Sherlock Rare Pair Bingo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after Sherlock Holmes' resurrection, a package appears on the doorsteps of 221B Baker Street. No marks on the package explain who it is from or why it has been sent to Sherlock Holmes, but the lack of clues is itself a giveaway, along with the scent of vanilla and sandalwood...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Archaic Kinds of Fun

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sherlock Rare Pair Bingo for the prompt 'Coat'

It has been three years since Sherlock Holmes returned to life, three years since his return to Baker Street, to the life of the consulting detective. Three years since he traveled the world, snipping away Jim Moriarty's web until Irene Adler took it from him, or he handed it to her on a silver platter. His pride oscillated between the narratives, whether she wrested control of Moriarty's web and in turn bested him again, or that he was so sentimental as to offer it to her because it was what she wanted.  
  
But it had been three years since that time, that brief halcyon time when Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler were both most and least themselves. Three years since he returned to his London and its criminals and its murders. But he kept an eye out, kept some of his attention on the world outside London. He had a room in his mind palace now, its wall a map of the world, with marks of the Woman's passage, of criminal activity in cities far away from London that bore her signature flair.  
  
He could not predict where those would be, just as he could not predict her, but when they came across his notice, he often found himself marveling at her audacity, at her cleverness.  
  
It was, perhaps, why his map remained in his mind palace, rather than as snippets of interesting news tacked to the wall of Baker Street like so many others. He did not wear his sentiment visibly; his time with the Woman remained theirs alone, like welts from her whip hidden beneath clothing.  
  
But it had been three years since they had said their goodbyes, three years since his return, three years without a whisper from her, three years of observing her passage through the world in the echos of ripples of newsprint.  
  
Three years until a package was delivered to the door.  
  
There was no return address, of course. The only identifying marks on the package's front were the mailing label to one Sherlock Holmes written in a man's hand (right handed, potentially ambidextrous based on the curve of the m) and the postmark from Frankfurt.  
  
He took the package into the flat's kitchen immediately, poring over every folded seam on the package, every inch of paper, with his magnifying glass. The lack of information on the package was telling, as telling as anything that could have been left on it, and he slit the top of the box open cautiously, careful not to disturb anything within.  
  
The faint scent of sandalwood and vanilla rose from the air within as soon as his knife pierced the top and a triumphant smile crossed his face.  
  
The Woman.  
  
Sherlock turned his attention back to the packaging then. He disregarded the mailing label immediately. Any clerk could be persuaded to write a label, but the postmark, that couldn't be faked, not easily. His mind immediately leapt to Frankfurt, to the number of places that could reach Frankfurt and (more importantly) the number of places that could be reached from Frankfurt within the two days it took for the package to arrive.  
  
While long, the list was finite.  
  
With such a list in mind, Sherlock turned his attention back to the contents of the package.  
  
Pulling back the cardboard, he blinked in surprise at the Belstaff coat folded snugly into the box, a twin to the one hanging on his-- He whirled in the kitchen, craning his neck to make sure the Belstaff, _his_ Belstaff, remained on its hook next to the door. It would not, after all, surprise him if the Woman had somehow managed to 'liberate' his beloved coat.  
  
And he scowled at the thought, imagining the smirk on her face if she ever learned of the stray thought.  
  
He touched the Belstaff with a careful finger, lest a careless shake dislodge the subtle clues left behind. Because this was a gift from the Woman, which meant there would be subtle clues, deliberately left behind for him to find, to deduce.  
  
The fabric was new, the collar still crisp, though the fibers lacked the brittle quality of the unworn coat. Worn then. A grudging smile pulled at his mouth, warring with his earlier scowl, as he remembered the telltale whiff of perfume. He leaned in close to the box, and breathed in again, his nose all but touching the collar.  
  
Sandalwood and vanilla. A barely there scent, along with the faintest trace of something else. Soap... He ran his thumb along the fabric, finding the dried mark of a water droplet. Not soap then, shampoo.  
  
In his mind palace he saw her vividly, her wet hair piled and pinned on top of her head, a damp lock falling from its careful pile as she dabbed Casmir onto her freshly washed skin (throat, behind the ears, wrists). She shook out the newly bought Belstaff then and pulled it on over her newly washed body, the perfume seeping into the fabric as she pulled it close, the droplet of water from the escaped lock of wet hair drunk up by the thirsty fabric.  
  
In his mind palace, the coat fell to her bare feet, sweeping along the ground like a train as she walked--  
  
Sweeping along the ground.  
  
He put his hands to the Belstaff and lifted it slowly, his eyes roaming over the length of it as he did, hungry for the next clue, the next bit of information that she had left, whether wittingly or unwittingly (he hoped for the latter, to prove to himself that she were not as clever as that, that she could and would slip, that he could best her still).  
  
The scent of her perfume waxed and waned as he did, proving his initial deduction that she had worn it, that it had been left in imperfect spots along the fabric. To spray the perfume on the coat directly would have been too obvious a ploy for the Woman, the Woman who made her puzzles difficult, who demanded he be _clever_ , who challenged him to _impress_. And there it was, as he expected, another hint, a smear of white along the bottom hem of the coat, thick dust caught in the weave of the fabric.  
  
Sherlock's expression was one of focused elation, as he set the coat back down, careful to dislodge as little of the dust as possible. He moved through the flat then as a man possessed, gathering a pair of laboratory goggles, glassware, a sterile jar, and his mobile.  
  
It took three hours, two exploded test tubes, and the consultation of several maps on his mobile before he pulled the goggles from his face, triumphant. Gypsum and pollen in the dust pointed without a doubt to Paris, while various traces of heavy metal oxides pointed to an open air source of water. The map gave him three possibilities along the Seine with the correct combination of water, dust, and pollen.

He shook the coat out then, and frowned at a slight shifting in the right breast pocket, a faint tinking of metal. A quick thrust of his hand into the pocket brought out a set of small, metal lockpicks. A third hint.

A third hint that he could not immediately unravel, but that he knew _could_ be untangled.

Never mind. He'd have time enough on the train ride to Paris.


End file.
